BJP heads to Kozhikode for next party meet

June 17, 2016 02:03 am | Updated October 18, 2016 02:52 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

To mark the centenary year of late Jan Sangh president Deendayal Upadhyaya, the BJP will hold its next National Executive, scheduled for late September in Kozhikode in Kerala. The place has been chosen for certain sentimental reasons as well as real politik, as the party wants to expand its presence in areas where it has been weak in the past.

The decision was taken a day after the party’s executive meet concluded in Allahabad, during a meeting of all State-level general secretaries (organisation), presided over by senior RSS office bearer Krishna Gopal.

“Deendayalji was elected Jan Sangh president at the party’s conclave in what was then called Calicut, now known as Kozhikode, in December 1967,” said a senior office bearer of the BJP.

“Unfortunately, only 41 days after that meeting, he was killed at Mughalsarai railway station in February 1968,” he added.

“We will be completing the year long centenary celebrations of Deendayalji on September 25 this year and it has been decided that the party national executive will be held at that time in the place where he was elected president,” added the source.

Upadhyaya, who had been a general secretary of the Jan Sangh for 15 years before he became its president is credited with formulating the ideological underpinnings of that party and its later avatar, the BJP, namely integral humanism and cultural nationalism.

The current government has launched several schemes in his name including the rural electrification scheme Deendayal Gram Jyoti Yojana, a rural skilling scheme called Grameen Kaushal Yojana and Antyodaya, another skill training programme for those below the poverty line. “The executive will mark not the just be the end of the year-long celebrations but will also be a way of acknowledging the debut of the State unit in the Kerala Assembly (the party won one seat in the recent Assembly polls), and our commitment to expansion of party organisation there,” added the source.

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